idolatry and atheism. To wage a war of extermination against the one, and to check the incipient progress of the others, was the work, to the furtherance of which he devoted himself. To say that he had many endowments which eminently fitted him for it would be redundant. He was a man whose genius and energy, under happier circumstances, might have achieved a complete moral revolution among his countrymen. He was by nature one of those who lead, not one of those who followone of those who are in advance, not one of those who are behind their age.

Our opinion of Rammohun Roy has already been sufficiently explained. Rammohun Roy was emphatically a great man. His talents were not only varied and brilliant but of an eminently useful kind. He had a sound judgment, a large and disciplined mind. In variety of knowledge, in depth of reasoning, in correctness of taste, he was rivalled by none of his countrymen. Both intellectually and morally he would rank very high among his species. He had not only a strong intellect but a generous heart. No one was more strongly impressed with the conviction, that to do good to man, was among the chiefest of earthly duties and privileges. The golden maxim of doing to others as you would that they should do unto you was frequently inculcated by him. The exercise of benevolence was associated by him with the greatest pleasure. To relieve the pains and to add to the pleasures of others was considered by him as a source of purest enjoyment. One winter day, as he was returning from his morning walk, he saw a poor sunburnt herb-seller-one of those men who daily cross the river with their basket load of vegetables-who had alighted his burden from his head to take a little rest. Finding some difficulty in replacing it, as there was none to help him, Rammohun Roy generously gave his assistance, and with his own hands helped the man to lift his load. We shall not surely be charged with using the language of exaggeration, if we declare that, among the philanthropists and reformers to whom alone the title of "Great,"-too often lavished on tyrants, heroes and conquerors, for building their aggrandisement on the prostration of their species, should be confined and kept sacred, and who alone should monopolize all the places in the temple of fame,a high place must unquestionably be assigned to Rammohun Roy. With an energy which set at nought the formidable resistance he encountered from the slaves of bigotry-with a perseverance which was unwearying with a moral courage which triumphed over persecution-with a benevolence which was not exclusive but catholic-with a religious aspiration,

which was fervid and impassioned but not impulsive and fanatical-he laboured, according to the light and knowledge which he enjoyed, to liberate the Hindu mind from the tyranny of superstition, and to inoculate it with the elevating principles of a more rational faith.

The life of Rammohun Roy was commensurate with one of the most important and stirring periods in the annals of this country. It embraces the commencement of that great social and moral revolution through which she is now silently but surely passing. When Rammohun Roy was born, darknesseven the darkness of ignorance and superstition-brooded over his fatherland. When he died, the spirit of enquiry was abroad in high places, and was triumphantly exploding antiquated errors. He lived to see a line of demarcation, which, since his death, has been considerably deepened, strongly drawn among the Hindus between the enlightened few and the benighted many. Rammohun Roy was the author of a great religious schism, which is destined to spread and widen. He helped to break the crust of that rigid and unbroken superstition, which had braved the formidable attacks of the Buddhist, and the fierce persecution of the Mahommedan. No native had before been enlightened and bold enough to do any thing of the kind. He was the first who opened the eyes of his countrymen to the monstrous absurdities of their national creed. He was the first who thundered forth into their ears— which had been for ages accustomed to the invocation of montras, and hermetically sealed against all true religion-the great truth that, "God is One and without a second." But, as yet, we have only seen the dawn of a better and more promising era. The number of those, upon whose tastes and feelings and sentiments, education has effectually told, is comparatively very limited. And even in their minds there is hitherto a strange mixture of light and darkness, truth and error. great mass still grope in moral and intellectual night. But the light that is to travel eastward and westward, and northward and southward, has already begun to illumine the horizon. The days of Hinduism are therefore numbered. The time is coming, (and oh, may it approach with lightning speed!) when the millions of Hindustan, who now exhibit a heart-rending spectacle of the prostitution of all that is sublime in religion and divine in worship, shall,-liberated from the thraldom of ignorance, and bigotry, and superstition,-learn to love, and obey, and adore the one true and living God!

The

To

ART. V.-Notes on Pondicherry; or the French in India. which is added a sketch of the Moguls, and the Mogul Empire in India. Also selected Essays on various subjects, by an officer of the Madras Artillery. Calcutta, W. Thacker & Co. 1845.

IT is not with the view of furnishing a dissertation on the French in India that we have taken up these Notes. Such a theme merits and demands an ampler discussion than our time and space can at present permit us to afford to it. To do it full justice would require a combination of powers-historic, philosophic, and graphic-to the possession of which few men could venture to lay any claim. Even a good readable sketch, which, in recording the vicissitudes of war and civil policy, with their cruelties and crimes, should glance at the more agreeable and placid scenes and events of private and social life, would be a task of no ordinary magnitude and difficulty.

Our present aim, however, is altogether of a humbler and widely different description. In a previous article headed "English women in Hindustan," we were led cursorily to note some of the incidents of married life amongst us-more especially as regarded the lot of Missionaries and Military Officers. The subject, however, may be said to be inexhaustible. And, as we were musing upon it, the Notes on Pondicherry fell in our way. There we found some chapters on Society and customs-love and marriage-and women in the east. And as the fragmentary delineations therein contained, were the last which had issued from our local press, and happened at the same time to chime in with our own musings, we resolved to devote a few pages to some good humoured random Notices of Married Life in India.

First, however, we must in courtesy bestow a few words on the author of the Notes. He is evidently a gay, buoyant, light-hearted gentleman, with whom, however austerely or cynically disposed, we could not well be angry. He has a fund of good nature and kindly feeling and simple humour which carries his reader briskly and pleasantly along, without any undue racking of the mental powers, or any excessive demand on the attention. His language is not always in accordance with the standard of refined taste; and there is occasionally an incongruous blending of images. At the same time, passages do ever and anon occur, which evince considerable elevation of thought and elegance of expression. In his general sentiments respecting men and manners, he is, for the most part, liberal and candid. Living, as he evidently does, in the sunshine of our

lighter literature, the eye of his mind is constantly regaled with the tints and the hues of an ever active though not brilliant or powerful imagination. Pleased with himself, and happy in the contemplation of his own visions, he is naturally disposed to see all things in the fairest light-because, under the illusive influence of warm emotions which diffuse a portion of their own vividness all around, all things become so many mirrors that reflect the ever varying image of his own joyous mind. The only instance in which he is decidedly churlish and unjust, is, where he rates the Protestants as "illiberal" for "finding fault with every form of religion except their own." In matters of religion, he himself evidently cherishes loose, indefinite, and unsatisfactory views. He has yet to learn that there is a happy medium between the extreme of an all-comprehending latitudinarianism and the extreme of an intolerant exclusive bigotry.

His literary ardour and energy cannot be better pourtrayed than in his own words:

"The pursuit of literature in India, from the nature of the climate and society consequent upon it, must always be esteemed as the chief mode to exalt instruct, and divert the mind. Its pleasures perhaps are never more strongly felt than when we are alone; for, with its aid, the miseries of solitude can never enter. The following pages were written during a march from Trichinopoly to Secunderabad in the months of May and June; and we do not think we could have written one whit the better, had we been comfortably caged in our own Bungalow, under the grateful influence of tatties and a punkah. We mention this merely to show how usefully time may be employ. ed, even on a long march, when, should the solitary not be a sportsman, the day is generally spent in lying down and rising, dressing and undressing, feeding and waxing hungry, becoming weary, and then lying down again."

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"Thus runs his world away."

When, either by reading, or committing to paper what he knows or has seen, his time may be employed to eminent advantage. "It is not," says the author of Tremaine," the monotony of employment, but the want of it altogether, that occasions ennui. The mere love of reading, which Gibbon found out was a passion which derives fresh vigour from enjoyment, and supplies each day and each hour with perpetual pleasure, gives to the student an empire over himself which no emperor ever had."

A work, composed under such disadvantages, may be regarded as something more than a mere literary curiosity;—it is positively an achievement of literary heroism. Talk of its defects and short-comings;-and do not the time and the place and the circumstances of its origin at once suggest a sufficient apology? But its information is exceedingly scanty and meagre. Very true. In judging, however, of its merits, in this respect, charity prompts and justice demands that we should apply the criterion proposed by the poet, and "regard

the writer's end." If he had undertaken what he failed to accomplish; if his pretensions were of a soaring, lofty, ambitious character, which, when tested by their fruits, disappointed all reasonable expectation; if he had assumed the air and port of a giant, when the actual development of his powers proved him to be a dwarf;-then might there be room for stern criticism and grave reproof. But, as the matter stands, there is really no room for reprehension. The writer is altogether humble and modest in his aims and object. His "end" has nothing in it of the grand, the lofty, the soaring, or the presumptuous. As represented by himself it exhibits the very essence of moderation. And judged with direct reference to it, as in fairness it ought to be, the work is no failure. It realises all which it professes to achieve. Respecting his historic sketch of the Moguls, the author says, that "it is drawn up for those who, with little study, seek an acquaintance with some important facts in Indian history, the value of which is indisputable." And respecting the entire miscellaneous contents of his work he writes in the following strain:

"We wish these remarks to be considered apart from the comparative trifle we now offer to the public, although fearless we launch our little craft into the sea of public opinion. It is laden for the enjoyment of those who may find an hour or so to hang heavy on their hands. As we are candid in all things, we have used plain sailing, and in the Notes we safely assert that Truth has guided the helm. "No mercenery writer his homage pays." Had we to support our existence by the pen in India, we are afraid the cases of Butler starved to death, and Otway choked with a roll amid the agonies of hunger, would be jokes in comparison with ours."

After such unpretending professions, on the part of our author, it is even possible that some readers, on a perusal of the work, may find their expectation exceeded rather than disappointed. At all events, the writer displays such occasional touches of shrewdness and naiveté, such improveable powers of observation, and such partially developed capabilities of literary composition, that, with more patience, industry and perseverance, and under more auspicious circumstances, he might produce a greatly more complete, elaborate, and valuable workand one fitted to command more general attention. Wisely has he done already in abandoning doggerel rhyme, and in making his election of more tasteful prose. And if with the enthusiasm which manifestly glows in his ardent temperament, he can only be persuaded patiently to persevere-ever remembering that there is no royal road to literary accomplishment and renown -he may yet attain to eminence in the walks of our indigenous Indian literature.